Productivity

(1179 words/5 minute read)

Productivity is about the little things

One of my favorite topics is productivity. And I love talking about it because it’s about getting things done. Literally getting IT done. But when I start to talk about being productive, I often focus first on the little things.  Why?  Because it’s the little things that matter.  It’s the little things that add up to big things!  And small bites are often easier for people to start rather than trying to change huge efforts or processes.

Operational Process Improvement

And as much as we love data, the data is the great way to show how these little efforts add up to great changes.  And that’s what’s really powerful.  We all see that in our personal lives things like changing habits take 21 days to change. Or how many of us had a New Year’s resolution only to see the gym back to regular numbers by March if not February? The power of habits is how people get more productive. Habits are hard to break. And so often little changes is where we can start to make the most impact.  Start making little improvements and updates, and as the value is noticed, as the efficiency is realized, then keep adding more little changes.

Think about daily metrics

One of my favorite case examples was having to process improve an office environment.  And actually this was not just any office but a medical office, where you can’t stop and take people to the back room and strategize, put stickies up on the wall and come up with ways to process improve. You had to help them improve their productivity live while they’re working. So that meant REALLY little things. I’m talking about as little as how many steps they took from their desk to the printer. We counted pages of printer paper. We counted mouse clicks. Little bites and, while the results were phenomenal, the big changes were the people.  The people could quantitatively see the value of how a few steps different or a few seconds of time savings when done again and again and again, day after day added up.  One small change with measurable outcomes that have actual business value are the gold mine of any process improvement.  Because here’s why it’s so important.  Those same staff saw that with some help they could change one tiny portion of their daily routine that would not only make their daily work easier, but also made their bosses’ lives better (because it was affecting bottom lines and business operations).  So the thinking became, if I can change one thing and it’s good, let’s change another.  And another.  And another.  Now the math on these small changes became exponentially quantifiable.  This small example was used to see more patients in the same amount of time with the same amount of staff while reducing overhead costs.  And it was only the start.  The staff were now empowered to keep improving by knowing how to look for those “little bites.”

The Value of Business Analysis in Process Improvement

So it might seem silly or almost a waste of time to save a few mouse clicks or keyboard strokes, but what about those things you do day after day after day?  How many of you type your email address more than once a day. Have you created a shortcut or a hot key option on your computer for your email address? May not sound like a lot but if you start tracking how many times you enter your email address on forms or responses, or other information, saving a few seconds every working day of the entire year, can absolutely add up.   That’s how simple it has to be.  But again, I come at it from this minuscule perspective.  I’m looking for those details in the daily steps and activities.  And this is exactly where and why I love talking about business analysis.

Considering a Business Analyst

How do you know where those opportunities are to save a few seconds every day? You need to have a process I that sees with the level of detail step-by-step what you or other people do. Now this is not the only thing business analysis roles due by any means.  But I want to give you the perspective of someone who can have that detail oriented focus on daily operations, that then compares how things work before AND after the change. It’s very hard for many of us to see the details when we’re doing the work. Think about trying to explain your daily activities to a new hire or even your child. If someone has never done the work before, you have to be very prescriptive in every single detail if you are describing the work to someone who's worked at organization for a while, there's a tendency to gloss over certain actions and steps.  Having an unbiased party who is watching your every move simply to understand what is happening today can be worth their time and resource allocation 10 times over because they are the ones that can help you quantify how small changes done by multiple people multiple times a day repeated throughout the entire year produce quantifiable results.

Business analysts, change agents, and process improvement specialists focus in on the details at whatever level of organization they are analyzing.  They are an unbiased party that are observing facts. There’s no judgment whether the action is right or wrong. There’s no assessment of the person who is performing the duties.  And when you have someone coming in who does not regularly performed the activities, then they give an even more unbiased guy to watch every detail happening because they don’t know what is “supposed to be” happening.  If you’re not convinced, ask a colleague of yours to take notes for you during your next meeting. Do not prep them or give them any advice ahead of time.  If they are familiar with the content or, especially if they are a seasoned professional in this area, they will often write less notes with less details than if you asked a junior staff member who is completely unfamiliar with the topic.  They will often see write down more notes than you ever expected. This is simply because they have no bias on what is “right” or supposed to be happening.

So going back to that original idea that productivity increases through very small, daily, improvements in processes, I would ask you to consider how you can observe how things get done in your organization. How can team members objectively capture how things are working so that you can find those small points a process improvement that lead to greater productivity and ultimate business value?  And that if asking your staff to improve their own processes is not working, have you just justified the expense to have a business analyst or process improvement specialist come in and objectively look for ways that staff can start immediately improving their daily productivity and ultimately your bottom line?  Cause with an eye for those details, an inclination to analyze the data and extrapolate out the scenarios, the value of business analysis is easily seen in productivity efforts.